It’s spring and legal innovation appears to be sprouting across the Canadian legal business.

So much has been happening in Canada’s legal innovation scene over the past three months that it makes me wonder if we’re finally at the tipping point of change in Canadian legal service delivery.

It wasn’t always so. February started with a rather dour report by the Young Bar of Montreal called Employment and Young Lawyers in Quebec. The report highlighted the poor job prospects of young Quebec lawyers and made a number of welcome recommendations that included management and legal innovation training for law students, as well as better data collection with respect to articling and legal roles.

Then the Quebec report concluded with a startling recommendation: a quota of 275 lawyers per 100,000 Quebecers. “It is clear,” the report states, “that a rise in the number of lawyers does not make justice more accessible.”

It seems that the financial interests of Quebec’s lawyers are to take precedence overall else — including innovation.

Now a ray of sunshine appears.

Just days after the release of the Young Bar of Montreal report, the Canadian Bar Association delivered its own recommendation for the profession, Doing Law Differently: Futures for Young Lawyers Report. This report channels the energy, enthusiasm and creativity contained within the newest members of the profession.

Prepared with the assistance of noted legal consultant Jordan Furlong, the report tracks the success of a number of Canadian legal entrepreneurs so as to give direction and encouragement to young lawyers who wish to forge new trails. It strikes a hopeful and positive tone.

“In the new legal marketplace, the future really is wide open,” the report states. “Now all you need is to equip yourself to take the fullest advantage of it.”

If Canadians were left with only these two reports representing polar opposite views of the future for lawyers, they would be understandably confused.

But in a series of fortunate events that could be described as legal innovation’s “Big Bang,” the path forward for the legal profession and for consumers of legal services has been made very clear.

In late April, MaRs legal incubator, LegalX, attracted a “who’s who” of the North American legal innovation scene to its sold-out New Frontier of Legal Innovation program. The all-day event served up a healthy dose of, “What’s happening? and “What’s the path forward?” to an eclectic crowd of big law firms, small law firms, in-house counsel, students and academics.

To stoke the fires of creativity, the Canadian Bar Association and LegalX announced “The Pitch,” Canada’s first ever legal innovation start-up competition to be held Aug. 12. Somewhat inspired by Dragon’s Den, if selected, a start-up will receive an equity investment of at least $200,000.

Canadians should be excited about the possibility of finally accessing affordable legal services through new platforms, processes and apps.

Serendipitously, only days later and to celebrate its first anniversary, Canada’s first legal incubator, Ryerson’s Legal Innovation Zone, with the support of the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, launched the Ontario Access to Justice Challenge. Up to six start-ups with ideas to improve access to justice through innovation will be admitted to the Legal Innovation Zone to develop their ideas. The top three start-ups will share $50,000 in seed money.

So, for the first time in Canadian history, open competitions with significant purses are now enticing entrepreneurs to develop better ways of providing legal services to Canadians. Soon we’ll see whether or not a collection of technologists, engineers and lawyers, all working together, are able to produce a better solution than 200 years of lawyers working alone. My money is on the former.

Despite the pessimism that emerges out of that February report from Quebec, the future is actually wide open. Canadians should be excited about the possibility of finally accessing affordable legal services through new platforms, processes and apps.

Meanwhile, these Ontario-focused initiatives beg two important questions. Why has Ontario been given first mover advantage in legal innovation? And where is the rest of the country?

Or perhaps, as is often the case in Canada, Spring doesn’t sprout everywhere at the same time. It therefore remains to be seen when other provinces will join in on the thaw.